For safety reasons, an infant or a young child riding in an automobile needs to be in a safety restraint. It has been found that infant seats oriented in an upright and rearwardly facing direction provide better crash protection than in a reclined orientation. When the infant is upright, forces can be better distributed across an infant""s back and shoulders. By comparison, when the infant is oriented in a reclined position, crash forces tend to distribute over the infant""s more vulnerable head and neck area.
For this reason, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) forbade use of reclined carriers in cars/vehicles. But with the advent of the SMART MOVE carrier, which is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,551,751 issued to Sedlack, et al., NHTSA now allows an infant to be carried in a reclined position, if a provision is made to uprightly orient the infant in a crash. The SMART MOVE carrier and the carrier described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,722,719, issued to Glomstadt, are infant carriers that can be secured to a carseat in a rearwardly facing direction. These carriers have provisions for uprighting an infant""s body position during a collision.
Specifically, these carriers have a base that is mounted to the car seat and an infant seat movably mounted to the base. The infant seat is movable so that, during a collision, the infant seat can swivel or rotate to an upright position. Because movable parts and shock reducing elements are part of the carrier, it can be somewhat bulky to carry.
Thus, there is a need for the carrier to be more transportable and easier to mount to a car seat in a rearwardly facing direction, while providing the safety features mandated by NHTSA. The present invention can meet this need.
The present invention relates to a base assembly and an infant carrier assembly having an infant carrier that is normally mounted in a rearwardly facing direction, and a method of controlling the carrier position. The infant carrier assembly has a base that can be attached to a car seat, a trolley that is movably attached to the base, and a carrier that is detachably connectable to the trolley. The trolley is adjustably mounted relative to the base so that it, with the mounted carrier, can be at various reclined positions. During a front collision, the trolley can break away from the reclined positions to uprightly position the carrier and soften the impact.
The infant carrier assembly comprises a base assembly and an infant carrier. The base assembly includes a base, a trolley, and a linkage assembly. The base is adapted to be secured to a vehicle seat. The trolley is movably mounted to the base and is limited to move between a first reclined position and a second reclined position, which is less reclined than the first reclined position. The linkage assembly connects the trolley to the base and limits the trolley to move between the first and second reclined positions. The infant carrier is detachably mountable to the trolley in a rearwardly facing direction relative to the vehicle seat.
The linkage assembly has a sacrificial link that can break when a predetermined force is applied to the trolley in a forward direction of the vehicle, whereupon the trolley is forced out of the first and second reclined position to an upright position. In the first reclined position, the carrier (its seatback) is angled about 58xc2x0 from the vertical and in the second reclined position, the carrier (its seatback) is angled about 49xc2x0 degrees from the vertical. The carrier (its seatback) can be angled upright up to about 15% (, i.e., greater than about 14xc2x0) from the vertical when the carrier is in the upright position.
The base can include a tilting mechanism that tilts the trolley relative to the vehicle seat. In this respect, the base comprises a foot, a lower base, and an upper base. The lower base is tiltably connected to the foot and the upper base is fixedly attached to the lower base. Specifically, the tilting mechanism can comprise an actuator, a first height adjusting tower, and a height adjusting rod. The actuator is movably mounted to the base and engages the height adjusting rod. The height adjusting tower is fixedly connected to the foot and has a plurality of rod receiving slots. The height adjusting rod is movably mounted to the lower base so that the actuator can move the height adjusting rod out of the respective slot, which allows the lower and upper bases to tilt relative to the foot.
The tilting mechanism can further include a second height adjusting tower spaced apart from the first height adjusting tower. The first and second height adjusting towers receive opposite ends of the height adjusting rod. The actuator has a slot that receives the height adjusting rod, between the ends thereof.
The base can have a front rail and a rear rail. The trolley can carry a front recline rod and a rear recline rod, the front rail receiving and guiding the front recline rod and the rear rail receiving and guiding the rear recline rod so that the trolley is movable relative to the base along the front and rear rails.
The linkage assembly can include a recline adjusting rod latchable to the base. The sacrificial link couples the rear recline rod, which is connected to the trolley, to the recline adjusting rod, which is latchable to the base. The linkage assembly further includes at least one spring coupling the recline adjusting rod to the rear recline rod, the spring becoming active when the sacrificial link breaks. Preferably, at least a pair of springs couple the rods.
The base can have first and second recesses that receive the recline adjusting rod. The trolley is locked in the first reclined position when the recline adjusting rod is seated in the first recess and locked in the second reclined position when the recline adjusting rod is seated in the second recess. A recline actuator is movably, e.g., pivotally, mounted to the base and has a first engaging member that engages the recline adjusting rod. The recline actuator moves the recline adjusting rod away from one of the first and second recesses to release the trolley, upon which the trolley is movable to the other of the first and second recesses. The recline actuator can include a second engaging member laterally spaced apart from the first engaging member.
The sacrificial link can comprise a first member pivotally connected to the recline adjusting rod and a second member pivotally connected to the rear recline rod to the recline adjusting rod, and a breakable member connecting the first and second members. The first member can comprise a first bushing pivotally journalled about the recline adjusting rod and a first pair of spaced apart linking arms extending from the first bushing. The second member can comprise a second bushing pivotally journalled about the rear recline rod and a second linking arm extending from the second bushing. The breakable member can connect free ends of the first and second linking arms.
A carrier latch assembly can be used to detachably mount the carrier to the trolley. The carrier latch assembly can comprise a pair of opposing slots formed at the carrier, a latch actuator, and first and second spring-biased latch plungers movably mounted to the trolley and movable into the opposing slots. The latch actuator is operably connected to the latch plungers to withdraw the plungers from the opposing slots to detach the carrier from the trolley. In this respect, the latch actuator can use a pair of mirror-imaged diagonal slots. Each latch plungers can have a pin extending therefrom and guided in one of the diagonal slots, which are configured to move the pins toward each other when the latch actuator is pulled.
A method of controlling an infant carrier position in a vehicle comprises: providing a base, which is adapted to be secured to a vehicle seat; mounting a trolley to the base and limiting the trolley between a first reclined position and a second reclined position, which is more upright than the first reclined position, relative to the base; detachably mounting an infant carrier to the trolley in a rearwardly facing direction relative to the vehicle seat; and breaking the trolley out of the first or second reclined position to an upright position when a predetermined force is applied to the carrier in a forward direction of the vehicle.